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Updated: May 19, 2025
She had given Kostolo the run of her purse, the accusation declared, though she denied the fact, insisting that what she had given him had been against his note. There was only one conclusion, however. Mme Boursier, knowing the poverty of her paramour, had paid him as her cicisbeo, squandering upon him her children's patrimony.
One hopes that her punishment finished with her acquittal, and that the mood of the mob, as apt as a flying straw to veer for a zephyr as for a whirlwind, swung to her favour from mere revulsion on her escape from the scaffold. The one thing is as likely as the other. So may it have been with the Veuve Boursier.
Inquiry established the fact that on the 15th of May, 1823 that is to say, several weeks before his death Boursier had bought half a pound of arsenic for the purpose of destroying the rats in his shop cellars. In addition, he had bought prepared rat-poison. Only a part of those substances had been used.
On the morning of the 28th of June, which would be a Sunday, Boursier was called by the cook to take his usual dejeuner, consisting of chicken broth with rice. He did not like the taste of it, but ate it. Within a little time he was violently sick, and became so ill that he had to go to bed. The doctor, who was called almost immediately, saw no cause for alarm, but prescribed mild remedies.
Having airily answered a question in a way that left him without any reputation, he would sweep the court with his eyes, preening himself like a peacock. He was asked about a journey Boursier had proposed making. At what time had Boursier intended making the trip? ``Before his death, Kostolo replied.
It is perhaps to the rather loud-mouthed habits of this Kostolo that the birth of suspicion among the neighbours may be attributed. On the death of Boursier he had remarked that the nails of the corpse were blue a colour, he said, which was almost a certain indication of poisoning.
He said that he was born in Constantinople, and that he had no estate. The acte d'accusation was read. It set forth the facts of the adulterous association of the two accused, of the money lent by Mme Boursier to Kostolo, of their meetings, and all the suspicious circumstances previous to the death of the epicier.
Their finding was that no trace existed of any disorders to which the death of Boursier might be attributed such, for example, as cerebral congestion, rupture of the heart or of a larger vessel but that, on the other hand, they had come upon a sufficiency of arsenic in the intestines to have caused death.
The loud murmurs that arose in court upon his blunt confession of having misconducted himself with Mme Boursier fifteen days after her husband's death seemed to evoke nothing but surprise in Kostolo. He was then asked if he had proposed marriage to Mme Boursier after Boursier's death. ``What! he exclaimed, with a grin. ``Ask a woman with five children to marry me a woman I don't love?
Bailli had then cudgelled that dull ass, his brain, to some effect, for they had ultimately come upon the residue of the arsenic bought by Boursier lying with the remainder of the mort aux rats. Both the poisons had been placed at the bottom of a bottle-rack, and a plank had been nailed over them.
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